House Blend: Meditation and your home

I am what you might call a moderate meditator. Some months I meditate twice a day, and then I’ll lose my OM and not sit quietly and reflect inward for weeks at a time. But no matter what phase I’m in, I am a big believer in the benefits of meditation.

My definition of meditation, by the way, has little to do with sitting cross-legged, Buddha-like, for hours on end. I define meditation as mindfulness. Mindfulness is becoming aware of what’s around us in the here and now. It’s the very opposite of what we normally do — rushing through endless tasks, reviewing relentless to-do lists, and spending way too much time on thoughts about the past or the future.

One of the few things I remember from the philosopher Cicero, who I was forced to read in my four years as a Latin student, is that we should resist the tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected. He was right.

Mindfulness teaches us to live in the present, to have more fully lived experiences, to focus on what we have, to accept our lives and ourselves as they are, to become aware and enjoy things around us, to enjoy each moment, to enjoy our lives.

A big and lofty pursuit, I agree, but one that starts, like many others, with baby steps. And it often starts in the place where you have the most control over your environment — your home. Mindful meditating at home is about paying attention to what you are doing. Nothing can be dismissed as insignificant or unimportant. Every simple activity — house cleaning, cooking, brushing your teeth — becomes a chance to calm the mind and body. Not easy to do, perhaps, but with patience, perseverance and a sense of humor you can bring this kind of everyday meditation into your home.

Here are a few of my easy meditation starters:

1. Set the Trigger. Use triggers to remind you to pay attention to the now. A trigger could be water, for example. So every time you come in contact with water — wash your hands or the dishes, water the garden, bathe the dog, etc. — the trigger goes off and you are reminded to “pay attention to the now.”

2.Write It Down. It might be helpful to reinforce your efforts by reviewing them at the end of each day. Record them in a meditation diary; just don’t make yourself good or bad based on how many times you were able to be mindful, or be discouraged by blank pages. Above all, this is not another opportunity to come up short. It’s about practicing something we will likely never do perfectly.

3.Stay in Bed. There is no purer time than those half-awake/half-asleep moments before we open our eyes in the morning. Enjoy them. Pay attention to them. Build these moments into your wake-up time. Start with seconds and then work up to minutes.

4.Make your bed. The state of your bed is the state of your head, someone once said. The five minutes you spend making your bed slows down a frantic morning scrambling and creates a calm retreat to welcome you home at night.

5.Time Yourself. If you’re distracted by what’s undone, set a kitchen timer and devote yourself wholeheartedly to the task at hand before the bell rings. The time you’ll find hidden in a kitchen timer unleashes more of your attention to the things that matter most.

6.Shut down. Set a curfew on the Internet and TV and discover the natural balance between daylight and darkness, work and rest. Your enjoyment of the quiet will naturally increase and you will effortlessly begin to grant yourself a moment of pure peace at the end of each day.

7.Rest. Sleep when you’re tired. Pay attention to your energy ebbs and flows and be mindful of them.

Finally, once a month or so book yourself a mini-retreat right at home. A profound insight is not something we can schedule. We can, however, set up the conditions in which such insights are likely to arise.

Retreats might include listening to a guided visualization or music designed to relax and revive. They could also be a time for educating yourself on working on your emotions, managing physical discomforts, dealing with difficulty concentrating, maintaining practice in daily life, and so forth. And, before you know it, you’ve built a resourceful collection covering all facets of mindfulness practice.